It’s worth it isn’t it? There we all were, at the end of a long school year, yet surrounded by people who care about art, who thrive on it, who can’t get enough of it and who rally on through two and a half days of vital, exciting, creative learning and challenges.

I really do need to see some passion out there, someone speaking from the heart, someone I/we can trust. Let’s end with a quote from Tony Benn and hope for the future, hope that more people will go out and vote, hope that more people in politics will talk to us and not at us….hope.“A faith is something you die for; a doctrine is something you kill for; there is all the difference in the world” – 1989 Tony Benn.

*Perhaps when our Secretary of State for Education finally gets round to reviewing the English Baccalaureate, she will spot the glaring omission of the Arts, or perhaps she will also recognise that in fact the EBacc is no longer fit for purpose. The world has and is changing rapidly, occupations and careers are not for life anymore, people will have micro careers and adapt to changing landscapes and ways of working. Our duty is to prepare them for that and support our young people so that they thrive (rather than just survive) in the contemporary world we live in.